Anne Sexton Quotes

Thinking about suicide is a potent consolation: it helps us to get through many a bad night.

I'm glad that I never ended up killing myself, though I came close more times than I would like to admit.

There's nothing beautiful about somebody killing themselves.

A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.

Many of the artifacts of my house had become potential devices for my own destruction: the attic rafters (and an outside maple or two) a means to hang myself, the garage a place to inhale carbon monoxide, the bathtub a vessel to receive the flow from my opened arteries. The kitchen knives in their drawers had but one purpose for me.

To a suicide: You just poisoned the wrong person.

[I] have fantasies of killing myself and thus being the powerful one not the powerless one.

Four years ago on this very day I tried to take my own life. And I said, "Zach, do it in front of your co-workers and end the misery." I don't know how many of you ever tried to jump off of a Pizza Hut, but you'll just get a sprained ankle out of the deal. Then you'll have to go back inside, and serve crazy bread.

Suicide thwarts the plan of the entity which sends out the personality. Fortunately, the entity is far beyond the reach of man's destructive tendencies.

The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.

I think it will be a miracle if I don't someday end up killing myself.

They tried to get me-I got them first! (suicide note)

Suicide was a mortal luxury not afforded to angels.

Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.

Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.

All healthy men have thought of their own suicide

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.

They tried to get me - I got them first! [Suicide.]

Suicide is the only way out.

Suicide is the worst form of murder, because it leaves no opportunity for repentance.

I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself

A suicide is both a rebuke to the living and a puzzle that defies them to solve it. Like a poem, suicide is finished and refuses to answer questions as to its final cause.

I tell people, if you're thinking about suicide, all that stuff I've attempted and thought about it. If you think about it, life gets better. The key to life when it gets tough is to keep moving. Just keep moving.

The private terror of the liberal spirit is invariably suicide, not murder.

On average, since the urge to kill myself isn't so strong that I actually kill myself, the world is worth living in.